Weighing your foods

Lindz2H
Lindz2H Posts: 36 Member
in Getting Started
Just a general question: do you weight your food before or after cooking it? For example, I weighed a piece of chicken before and after cooking it and it went considerably down in weight. Which prompted me to think, hm, maybe I'm cheating myself out of a handful of calories /day. Thoughts?

Replies

  • LyndaBSS
    LyndaBSS Posts: 6,964 Member
    I weigh before. If I weighed after, it would double the effort, and take some of the joy out of preparing the meal. That's just me, though.
  • Lindz2H
    Lindz2H Posts: 36 Member
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    Depends on the food. Whether I weigh before or after, I make sure I find an entry that says cooked or raw.

    I prep a bunch of chicken breast on Sundays. I do not weigh them raw, because there are 6-8 of them and I would never know which one weighed what by the time I was done. So, I weigh them cooked, with this entry...

    amo5rwo4beqb.jpg

    Hm, so I just scanned the barcode on the chicken that I purchased. You recommend finding a cooked option through the MFP database? I try to use it as little as I can, I've noted a lot of incorrectly entered items.
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    Lindz2H wrote: »
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    Depends on the food. Whether I weigh before or after, I make sure I find an entry that says cooked or raw.

    I prep a bunch of chicken breast on Sundays. I do not weigh them raw, because there are 6-8 of them and I would never know which one weighed what by the time I was done. So, I weigh them cooked, with this entry...

    amo5rwo4beqb.jpg

    Hm, so I just scanned the barcode on the chicken that I purchased. You recommend finding a cooked option through the MFP database? I try to use it as little as I can, I've noted a lot of incorrectly entered items.

    That's why I add USDA to the search.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,422 Member
    Adding "USDA" to the search doesn't ensure correctly entered items. The ones that were input by Admin (which are correct) don't have USDA in their titles: those were entered by users, so you still need to vet every item you use (the first time.)

    The real beauty of Myfitnesspal is the ability to enter your own foods and/or Edit the ones in the database. Once you do that they are forevermore in your MY FOODS list.

    Once you use a food you've entered into the database or edit an existing one and then add it to your daily FOOD log it appears in your "Recents" list and it's easy to find going forward. My Recents list holds 100 items per meal. Using all six food slots allows me 600 items in my Recents lists. Easy to find, no matter what the food. Or I can Search for it in MY FOODS or the shared database.
  • Carneyje3
    Carneyje3 Posts: 48 Member
    I weight the raw ingredients and make note of them. I then weight the finished product and put that for total servings amount as if it was a recipe. For example if I make a chili and the finished batch is 2k grams then I label it as 2k servings. I then enter all the raw ingredients into it.
  • Neightyre29
    Neightyre29 Posts: 47 Member
    edited June 2019
    I just weigh it raw. Like another poster mentioned the lost weight is in water mostly so whatever really. Are there any foods in mind that you're concerned about?

    edit: another example of adding weight is pasta. I mean you're just adding water right? No need to weigh after cooking when the content label is for uncooked.
  • puffbrat
    puffbrat Posts: 2,806 Member
    I create a recipe. Weigh the meat raw and add the oil, etc. Cook. Weigh the cooked total and make the number of grams equal the number of servings in the recipe. Cut and weigh my portion and log that weight in grams as the number of servings in my food diary.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,278 Member
    If you weigh it raw, use a correct database entry for the raw food. If you weigh it cooked, use a correct database entry for that food and the specific cooking method, ideally (steamed or poached is different from baked for many foods, for example). Raw is likely to be more accurate, because cooking longer or shorter changes the water content variably.

    Scanning the barcode is no more accurate than looking up the food manually in the database: It still pulls up a crowd-sourced (user entered) value. It's good to check it against the label or the USDA food database before using it, if you want to be most precise.
  • Danp
    Danp Posts: 1,561 Member
    Weigh everything 'raw' as it's the best way to get accurate and consistent cals/weight.

    Foods can increase or decrease weight during the cooking process while for the most part retaining the same caloric value. This is usually down to water gained or lost while cooking. So by weighing after cooking you're introducing a margin of error.

    100g of chicken will always have Xcals raw. That same piece of chicken might weigh 90g, 80g or even 70g if it's grilled depending on how long it was cooked while remaining the same number of calories.

    100g of uncooked pasta will have Xcals. That same serve of pasta cooked will have the same number of calories buy weigh 120g, 130g or even 150g after cooking depending on how long it was cooked (how much water it absorbed).

    In both examples, since you don't know the raw weight you don't know how much to increase or decrease the calories logged since you don't know how much to increase or decrease the cals/weight as you don't know how much weight was lost or gained.

    Just weigh raw unless it's entirely impossible, then pick a 'cooked' data base entry and treat the accuracy with scepticism.
  • Justin_7272
    Justin_7272 Posts: 341 Member
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    Depends on the food. Whether I weigh before or after, I make sure I find an entry that says cooked or raw.

    I prep a bunch of chicken breast on Sundays. I do not weigh them raw, because there are 6-8 of them and I would never know which one weighed what by the time I was done. So, I weigh them cooked, with this entry...

    A more accurate method than using USDA cooking technique calculations (roasting, baked, etc.) and easier than keeping track of multiple weights when cooking multiple similar items is to weigh one uncooked item and keep track of that one. Once cooking is complete, weigh that item. Then apply the ratio across the board when weighing the other cooked items.

    For example, a raw chicken breast weighs 200 grams. You grill it and grilled weight = 160 grams. Your ratio of raw:cooked is therefore 5:4 (1.25). You can now weigh any of the other grilled chicken breasts, multiple the weight by 1.25, and obtain the raw weight.
  • showjefb
    showjefb Posts: 109 Member
    It really does not matter as long as you are consistent with your method.
  • ChickieBoom22
    ChickieBoom22 Posts: 81 Member
    I weigh cooked food and I weigh or measure all my food. I eat 4oz of protein for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 8oz of cooked veggies and 8oz of raw veggies or salad.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Lindz2H wrote: »
    Just a general question: do you weight your food before or after cooking it? For example, I weighed a piece of chicken before and after cooking it and it went considerably down in weight. Which prompted me to think, hm, maybe I'm cheating myself out of a handful of calories /day. Thoughts?

    Generally speaking, food is weighed raw or unprepared unless stated otherwise on a package (you usually see this with bacon). That said, if you weigh it cooked, you should choose an entry for "cooked". The decrease in weight doesn't change the calories...the chicken will lose water when you cook it so it weighs less after cooking...this doesn't change the calories. 6 oz of chicken weighed raw will have the calories as 4 oz of chicken after being cooked.
  • ceiswyn
    ceiswyn Posts: 2,256 Member
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    Depends on the food. Whether I weigh before or after, I make sure I find an entry that says cooked or raw.

    I prep a bunch of chicken breast on Sundays. I do not weigh them raw, because there are 6-8 of them and I would never know which one weighed what by the time I was done. So, I weigh them cooked, with this entry...

    In similar situations, I just weigh them raw as a whole and divide by the number of items. My entries may be slightly out for each individual meal, but the errors cancel out over time.
  • vikybutt
    vikybutt Posts: 1 Member
    edited June 2019
    I weigh them Raw, But this question always bugged me so I found the simplest solution which is to keep my food simple and I eat the same food everyday with slight changes in recipes to keep me going and If I add or minus some calories I do it from the same food everyday, One thing i've learned over my 8 months of continues fat loss and conditioning journey, It don't really matter if you are calculating em right or wrong as long as your continue to weigh em the same way as you did from start you'll still be able to keep track.

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